Virtual Crossing, 2021, looped animated gifs, dimensions and durations variable.

What if the digital version of the self becomes the only way to convey who you are?

Traditionally, online personas have served as an escape, a way to express another aspect of who you are. In my question about the digital self, I begin to speculate about a future in which embodied experiences no longer exist. Throughout the pandemic, many of us have been isolated with limited social contact, making it even more crucial to turn to digital devices to keep connected and informed. This increase in reliance on digital means of expression and communication is literally pulling us into a virtual existence, one that we have yet to fully understand and study due to its rapid development and continuously changing platforms.

Virtual Crossing is a series of non-narrative, silent, looping digital animations. Through a spectrum of bright colors, photomontages using appropriated facial and bodily features move, bend, twist, and distort. The process of these animations start with printed images on paper. The photomontages are roughly assembled in physical form and then translated to digital through a flatbed scanner. Creating distortions in the scanning process or manipulating each individual piece of the photo-montage digitally gives life to these otherwise static images. These ‘alternate bodies’ were created with a sense of optimism instead of criticism, as a way of expanding awareness to the way in which our virtual existence plays a major role in our everyday embodied life.